The present invention relates generally to an automatic telephone answering apparatus for asking a calling party to speak his/her name upon reception of a call from the calling party and amplifying his/her voice so as to identify the calling party, and more particularly to a set-up method therefor.
Conventional automatic telephone answering apparatuses of this type are described in Japanese Patent Disclosure Nos. 51-110906 and 57-23353. According to such a conventional automatic telephone answering apparatus, a first outgoing message is recorded on an outgoing message tape to ask a calling party to speak his name, a blank tape portion is formed for a subsequent time interval to allow the calling party to speak his name, and a second outgoing message representing that a called party cannot answer the phone is recorded on the outgoing message tape. When an incoming call is actually received, a name of a calling party spoken during a period corresponding to the blank tape portion is amplified by a loudspeaker unit. When the called party checks the name of the caller, he answers the phone, if desired. In case a calling party will not speak his name, has a wrong number or is making a nuisance call, the outgoing message tape is kept running. After the second outgoing message tape is sent out to the calling party, the automatic telephone answering apparatus becomes set in the standby mode. However, in the technique described in Japanese Patent Disclosure No. 51-110906, an index such as a conductive tab is formed at the end of the first outgoing message recorded on the outgoing message tape. The index such as a tab is detected by an electrode, and a timer is started in response to the detection signal. The loudspeaker unit is operated for a time interval preset by the timer so as to amplify a name of a calling party. When the time interval preset by the timer has elapsed, the second outgoing message is sent out to the calling party. For this reason, the electrode for detecting the index is structurally separated in position from the play head. Therefore, it is difficult to synchronize a timing for interrupting the outgoing message with a timing for starting the loudspeaker and amplifying the voice of the calling party, resulting in inconvenience.
In the technique described in Japanese Patent Disclosure No. 57-23353, the above drawback is eliminated. However, a beep tone is recorded throughout the blank portion immediately after the first outgoing message. A time constant circuit is started a short period of time after the beep tone is detected. This time constant circuit generates an output while it detects the beep tone. A loudspeaker unit is started in response to the output from the time constant circuit so as to amplify the voice of the calling party. For this reason, the beep tone must be recorded throughout the blank portion of the outgoing message tape, resulting in inconvience.